Meet the Italian Instagram sensation who bakes tiny fantasy worlds

In his regular day job, 23-year-old Matteo Stucchi works as a pastry chef for a catering company in a small province of northern Italy. In his spare time, however, the talented sweet maker designs and bakes elaborate dessert scenes starring miniature figurines, and posts them to his cult Instagram account, I Dolci di Gulliver (@idolcidigulliver).

Fascinated by other artists on the web creating scenes interplaying objects and food off one another, Stucchi thought he'd try his hand at something similar, but with his own unique take on it—watch the clip above to see why the internet is mesmerised.

"I focused myself on my dessert, in order to make [these scenes] in a different and innovative way, using all my fantasy, trying to surprise my followers," Stucchi told 9Kitchen.

The scenes certainly capture the imagination, with the mostly edible dioramas taking their cues from the fictional miniature town of Lilliput in Gulliver's Travels. Here, life-sized desserts are seemingly built by teeny-tiny plastic people, sometimes captured mid-construction, or frozen dramatically, mid-action.

"To create each scene [takes] at least an hour," Stucchi said. Of course, that's excluding the hours of baking and prep that goes into making the skillful pastries and treats that feature in each of the adorable scenes.

The young pastry gun told us he only created the Instagram account last summer as a hobby, and within months had amassed tens of thousands of followers—@idolcidigulliver currently boasts more than 104,000 fans.

There's a certain whimsy and playfulness to the miniature scenes that echo with childhood nostalgia, which is all part of Stucchi's philosophy.

"I think it's important to appreciate by eye, but it's better to do it by heart."